Entries Tagged 'Fifteen Years in America' ↓

It’s been a while since I translated a chapter of my dad’s story of how we immigrated to America and started a new life.  This is a bonus  story he wrote at the end of Chapter 3 that doesn’t have much to do with his new college life.  Anyway, it is an episode in our lives that is worth mentioning.  For more of my dad’s narrative see the category marked Fifteen Years in America. Enjoy!
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In the winter of 1992, I received an acceptance letter from Kap’iolani Community College.  Since I was an international student, I did not qualify for the inexpensive in state tuition.  The rate for international students was more than $1000 per semester.  Registration was due on 1/13 and classes started on 1/18.  When I was about to start school, two events happened.  One was a good thing, and the other was not.

First let me explain the joyous event.  When Helen was in college during the late 1970s she was a translator for a group of American educators that visited China.  Because of this she met an elementary teacher from Pensacola, Florida named Betty.  Betty’s husband was a retired military man of the United States Air Force.  At that time Betty was more than 60 years old but she was extremely interested in China.  After she met Helen she was quite interested in Helen’s education and life.  They became penpals for many years.  Even after we were married they kept on writing each other.  After Xin was born Betty was quite interested in Xin’s growth and education.  Everytime Xin had a birthday she would send some books and gifts.  When Helen arrived in Hawaii, the person that came to pick her up from the airport was Betty’s good friend.

After Xin and I came to America, Betty wrote us a letter saying that she is preparing a surprise for Xin.  Right before Christmas we received a letter from Los Angeles from a woman named Lynn.  In the envelope there were three roundtrip tickets from Hawaii to LA and three tickets to Disneyland worth 56 dollars each.  The letter said that we were invited as guests of the Presbyterian Church to a Christmas in Los Angeles.  Later we found out that this was the surprise Betty was talking about.

This was our first Christmas in America.  Lynn had a Ford, and she drove us from the Los Angeles Airport to her home.  Lynn is also a elementary school teacher, and her husband is a professor at UCLA.  They have two children, one boy and one girl.  The boy is the older child and his name is John.  He just graduated from college and his major was English.  However, he joined a fishing company and worked on the oceans as a fisherman.  I heard from Lynn that being a fisherman is hard and dangerous work and the pay was not spectacular, but John was  young and wanted to broaden his experience.  His parents thought that it was a good idea and did not protest.  At that time, I honestly didn’t understand the mindset of American parents.  I always thought that when children graduate from college they should go to graduate school and join academia, and I would never allow my child to do such hard and dangerous work.  However, after being in America for a while I understood more of the American educational system.  I think perhaps this type of hard labor is a lesson   American parents hope that their children could learn.  Perhaps in those dangerous waves, John could receive the inspiration Hemingway had when he wrote “The Old Man and the Sea”.

That week, Lynn’s church had a volunteer to drive us somewhere every single day.  We went to Disneyland and Xin was extremely excited and had a wonderful time.  Additionally,  we toured Hollywood and went to many different museums.  Nevertheless, that Christmas we were extremely happy.  I wanted to thank Lynn and her family for being such gracious hosts so I bought a chicken from the supermarket and made a Chinese style roast chicken.  I put many different ingredients and also sticky rice inside the stomach of the chicken and baked it for three hours until the skin was crispy and brown.  Lynn’s family tasted my chicken and praised it quite a bit, and said that I should visit them more often.

We could never forget that event and Betty’s love for our family.  A little over five years ago I and Helen visited Betty in Florida.  At that time, she was more than 80.  I cooked several Chinese dishes for her and when she heard that we both had great jobs and Xin was studying at UC Berkeley she felt very relieved.  Today, even though Betty already left us, her smiles and voice is still often remembered in our family.

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Addendum from Xin:  I still remember that Christmas really clearly even thought it has been more than fifteen  years because it was beautiful.  The funniest moment I remember was that Lynn’s family sat down to pray over the food, and my dad didn’t quite understand it.  So when they said something like, “Thank you for this food”, my dad blurted out something like “no problem!” because he cooked the chicken.  My mom was embarrassed and then explained it to him later.  It’s still pretty funny when I think of it.

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This is a continuation of my family’s immigration story as told by my dad. In this chapter my dad chooses a major in college at the age of 38. If you missed the previous posts please check out the series’ category here:

Fifteen Years in America

Kapi’olani Community College’s Admissions Office is in a building with the backdrop of Diamond Head. I found it quickly and an administrator named Alice started to talk to me. I told her my background, including my experience as a college professor in China, but my English was quite poor and I wanted to repeat college. She listened to my stuttering English and often stopped me and said, “Excuse me, could you repeat? I don’t understand you.” After a bit of explaination, she understood what I was trying to say. She told me that it’s great that I want to attend the school and there are many older adults attending. There are even seniors studying courses of their choice. Additionally, there are some international students. With her introduction, I found out more about the University of Hawaii system. University of Hawaii is a public school system created by the state government, and includes three universities. The largest of the universities is the University of Hawaii at Manoa. It has over 20000 students and has masters and PhD programs for many different subjects. In addition to the three universities, there are seven community colleges on the major islands. These colleges generally have lower requirements for entry and also cost significantly less. At that time, each semester credit only cost 19 dollars and the max you had to pay was 228 dollars per semester. There are many subjects you can study and you have a choice to take classes you are interested in. After two years, you can get an Associate Degree and you can use the degree to find jobs or transfer to a four year university. I personally think that this system of higher education in America is commendable because it suits the needs of different types of students and saves resources for the society as a whole.

After Alice told me the information, she asked me what my English score was. I told her my TOEFL score and she said that I already qualify for the school. So she took out several different forms from a drawer and told me to fill it out. As long as I turn them in within a week I could enter college the next semester. I was extremely excited and took the forms she gave me and hopped out of the school like a little sparrow. As I walked home, my thoughts were like the turbulent waves of the nearby Pacific Ocean. I thought of the words of one of Helen’s friends, “Be not afraid of being slow, but be afraid of being still”. These words contain a deep wisdom.

After I got home, I started to busily fill out my application forms. In addition to the basic application, I needed to prove that I had economic support. In the application there was a section about high school. When the Cultural Revolution began, I was only in the 4th grade, and the schools shut down after I finished two years of middle school. When I was 15 I was sent to work in a factory, so I have no record of attending any high school. Fortunately, I had my TOEFL score and my college diploma, so it didn’t matter. Helen already had a graduate teaching assistant scholarship so she is considered an employee of the University and we had medical coverage. At that time, the most important question is what major I should pick. A Chinese proverb says, “men are afraid of picking the wrong profession, and women are afraid of marrying the wrong man”. From the point of view of a traditional Chinese person, I was already in a stage where I couldn’t turn back. However, I had to rekindle my fire, and I really needed to pick the right career.

I chose to study finance and accounting based on my skills. The main reason is that my English was horrible, but my mathematical skills are quite decent. Second, I already had a background in economics and law, and that could be important in a financial career. Third, many people think that being an accountant is quite boring and tedious so there is a shortage of accounting professionals. In general, accounting jobs are easy to find because accountants are needed everywhere. Recently America added many financial legislation so that auditors and accountants are needed in larger quantities. It is very different from China because in America financial professionals are paid quite well and they are generally respected individuals. Recently, I saw a paper which listed the 25 highest paying professions in America. The first 10 spots were taken by various types of doctors, and the top median salary is around $160,000. CEOs were placed at number 14, and accounting managers are placed at number 25 with an average salary of $100,000.

The things I experienced later proved that choosing to be a financial professional was correct. The year before last I was invited by my alma mater in China to do a series of lectures about nonprofit companies in America. So I created a course based on my personal experiences and successfully delivered a special lecture. Afterwards, I saw one of my old assistants, who is now the dean of the business school. When we had dinner together he asked me what I do in America for a living. I told him that do some financial consulting and accounting. He said, “it’s such a shame that talent like you is being an accountant!” After I have been in America for so long my thoughts and prejudices have changed quite a bit. I remember that the great author Lu Xun once said, “if you don’t have that much talent, just pick something small to do.” I do not regret my choice for a bit. If I didn’t leave my position as a professor, my life would have stood still and living for one day would be the same as living for one year, and perhaps I would still be the same after ten years.

A friend left a comment in my blog that said, “when you are studying you find joy in work. I have once said that if it were possible I would spend my entire life at school, but reality would not allow you to do so.” It is true and I agree with her view. I am extremely lucky and glad that I was able to make a new choice, have a new goal, and live a new life. In fact, when I started college once again, I felt so much younger since my classmates were teens and tweens. How many people have a chance to return to that period of their lives?
To be continued! If you don’t want to miss a thing, please subscribe to the full feed!

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This is a continuation of my family’s immigration story as told by my dad. In this chapter my dad goes back to college with teenagers! If you missed the previous posts please check out the series’ category here:

Fifteen Years in America

My success in Duke’s Lane strengthened my self esteem, but I knew that I couldn’t be a salesman at a souvenir shop forever. I was in America, and I was an alien. If I wanted to stay, I needed to go to school. In China I studied agricultural economics, and then changed my focus and studied economical law. My English skills were quite horrible, and law school in America required extremely high linguistic skills. I could not even understand the test to get into law school. So as I worked I tried my best to study English. I copied vocabulary words onto cards and tried my best to remember them. When I rode the bus or had extra time at work I would study vocabulary. After three months in America, I took the TOEFL and got a score of 540. This score was 10 points below the lowest requirement of the University of Hawaii’s economics department. Shortly after the test, I received a letter from the department informing that I was rejected. The letter also indicated that in addition to the TOEFL, the GRE was also required as of the spring semester of 1993.
When I read this letter, my heart sank to the floor. I thought that I have expended the effort of nine bulls and two tigers and I still didn’t qualify. Now I needed to study for the GRE, and I had no idea how long it would take for me to be able to get into graduate school. Actually, at that time I did qualify for Hawaii’s Pacific University, which is a private school that charged over $5000 per semester. There was no way I could afford the fee.

During this time, I took a day off from work. I helped Popo clean her yard and then fed the dozen or so red eared turtles in her backyard. Then I started to study. At this moment Popo’s third daughter Gloria came to visit. She is a highschool teacher and she takes turns with her siblings to take Popo out for strolls. Gloria is almost 50. She married a Japanese American many years ago, but he passed away more than ten years ago. She doesn’t have children, and so she visits quite often and is quite attentive to our family. Whenever she comes she would drive us to get groceries and sometimes she brought treats for my daughter.

This day, she saw that I was at home and asked about how I was doing. I told her that I was just rejected from UH, and I could not afford a private university. I was quite anxious and disheartened, but she told me to calm down, and told me that there is a community college named Kapi’olani Community College very close to the house, and it wouldn’t hurt for me to take a look.

I followed her directions and walked south on 16th Avenue for about ten minutes. Then I saw a beautiful campus surrounded by coconut trees and other tropical plants. When I walked into the campus I was pleasantly surprised. Due to a construction project that blocked the southern end of 16th Avenue, I didn’t see the campus when I first moved to Popo’s house. I didn’t know that there was such a beautiful place close to the house. I was mesmerized by the campus’ modern architecture, neatly landscaped gardens, and its grandiose backdrop of the ocean and Diamond Head. Nearly every building on the campus is named after a tropical plant native to Polynesia and Southeast Asia. For example, the cafeteria where I worked is named ‘Ohi’a, which is a small Hawaiian plant with bright red flowers. Another example is the art building, which is named after a very fragrant Hawaiian flower called Maile which is used in leis quite often. Basically, this college’s buildings and Hawaiian plants reflect the roots of Hawaiian culture.

If people say that Hawaii is paradise, then I would say that Kapi’olani Community College is like a small paradise inside paradise. When I first saw this beautiful campus, I fell deeply in love with the place.

To be continued! If you don’t want to miss a thing, please subscribe to the full feed!

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This is a continuation of my family’s immigration story as told by my dad. If you have missed the previous posts they are all in this category here:

Fifteen Years in America
Enjoy!

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My second secret weapon for being a great salesman is “know the product and prepare for the psychological battle”.

Hawaii is a world famous travel destination, and tourists visit from all over the world. They are not only after this Pacific island’s beautiful scenery, but they are also looking for unique things they have not seen before. In a busy market like the one in Waikiki, it is important to understand how to capture a guest’s curiosity. Previously I talked about selling a pair of exercise balls from China. This is not an item from Hawaii, but how did I capture tourists with this product? The following is my “patented” routine for selling these balls.

First, you must get a customer’s attention. I mentioned in a previous section of the story that I piqued the interest of a customer by rolling the balls in my hands. Oftentimes, it is curiosity that brings out the potential of making a sale. When you capitalize on that potential, you may be rewarded with a sale. This is how I convert that potential into money.

First, after I get a customer to stop I would give an introduction, “Sir, do you see these two balls? The first is a dragon, and it symbolizes a king. The second is a phoenix, and it represents the queen. In China, this also means power, money, and great fortune!” At this moment, I would spin the balls and let the customer hear them ring. The two balls usually have different bells in them. One would be high pitched and sharp, and the other would be deeper toned. Then I would continue my pitch and say, “the higher pitched tone means “yang”, and the lower pitched ball represents “yin”. In Chinese medicine, you will achieve great health and fortune only when you have a balance of yin and yang.” Additionally, I would start to roll the balls on the back of the customers as a massage if they allow me to.

Then I would conclude my act with this, “Buy these two balls and you will bring home power, fortune, luck, and health!”

I took my skills in lecturing as a professor and transferred it to selling products. After my colorful description of the balls many customers seem to feel that if they did not buy the balls they would have lost something. Because I satisfied their hunt for curios I sold more balls than anyone else in the lane. Most other stores do not even sell one box, but I often sold 20 or more boxes per day.

Originally, many Korean shops did not have this product, but as they saw that I sold it extremely quickly they started to add the balls to their inventory. However, they couldn’t sell them as well as I did because they didn’t understand that in selling any product you need a little bit of creativity. Without my stories, their products did not move, and my creativity is not something they can buy.

The Korean salesman next to me saw that I sold the balls by the cases, and gave me the moniker of “number one salesman on Duke’s lane”. Thus some Korean shopkeepers wanted to hire me at a higher salary, but I didn’t agree. The reason is that I liked Peter and the few Chinese salespeople nearby. A few of these Chinese shopkeepers gave me the nickname of “BALL SALES KING”.

Even though fifteen years passed, I still have very fond memories of the marketplace, and the friends I made there.

At that time, the shop across from me was run by an immigrant family from Guangdong, China. Their surname is Lin. The father and mother arrived in America not knowing any English, and could only work in sanitation services. They have four children. The eldest is a man also named Peter. Then there are three women. The oldest daughter is named Ah-juen, the second is named Ah-ming, and the youngest is named Ah-mei. All of them are hardworking and when I just started at Duke’s Lane they helped me quite often. The two eldest children did not go to college. The eldest son Peter worked in a Japanese restaurant at first, and Ah-juen worked for my boss Peter. After they saved enough money, they bought the store across the way from my boss and became shopkeepers themselves. The youngest children Ah-ming and Ah-mei both attended the University of Hawaii. Ah-ming became an engineer and started to work for the government, and Ah-mei majored in international politics because she wanted to be an ambassador.

After I left, Peter Lin bought my boss Peter’s store and another store selling gold jewelry, and his business was booming. I was really inspired by this family from China’s countryside. I saw the spirit of the Chinese people, and their struggles to survive as immigrants in America gave me guidance.

Duke’s Lane was not only the first place that gave me my daily bread in America, but it was also a real life classroom for my daughter. At that time, Hawaii’s law mandated that children under the age of twelve could not be left alone at home. My daughter was only nine, so sometimes after school she would come with me to the store. She witnessed our fight for survival in America. Since America is a free market country that encourages competition, the experience at Duke’s Lane actually helped me quite a bit in my quest for education and employment in the future.

I turned from a college professor to a small street vendor. However, I felt that our living standards were not so bad at that time. Though there was quite a bit of psychological pressure. Here I will address a comment a reader sent to me. Lingling said, “I am very impressed by your courage to go to America, but I am also a little confused. What are you really chasing after with all of your hard work?” I think here I will quote something written by another friend. I really like this section where he said, “When you conquer bitterness and obstacles, obstacles are your riches. When obstacles conquer you, they are your shame.” I think that changing from a real college professor to the Professor of Duke’s Lane is just a set of obstacles to make me stronger. If you think about it, if I did not leave China to come to America, would I have had the colorful experience I had at Duke’s Lane? When we conquer obstacles, we collect experiences of life, and those are priceless treasures.

Stay tuned, Chapter 3 will be coming up! If you do not want to miss anything, feel free to subscribe to the full feed!

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This is a continuation of my family’s immigration story as told by my dad. If you have missed the previous posts they are all in this category here:

Fifteen Years in America

Enjoy!

The next day, I arrived at Peter’s shop before 4pm. Peter introduced me to Meilan. Meilan is a Vietnamese born Chinese woman around 30 years old. She spoke both Mandarin and Cantonese fluently. She arrived in Hawaii in the mid 1970s with her parents as a refugee and worked with Peter for more than three years.

Peter told Meilan, “Please teach this man how to sell things here, and especially teach him how to price things and do solid business. Additionally you should teach him how to lock down the store at night. I have to go now. A few friends are waiting for me at a game of Mahjong.”

After Peter left, I learned a bit more about the marketplace from Meilan, and especially the skills involved in selling trinkets. Meilan told me that in these Waikiki stores generally the face price is ten times that of the wholesale price. If the item is a luxury item such as fine silver or gold jewelry then the markup is even higher. So even if a customer haggles, we could still sell it. However, we can’t sell our wares for too low of a price because our competitors sell similar things. People generally buy what is easy to sell, and if one store cuts the profit margin too low then the other stores would be quite angry. Additionally, Meilan told me a little bit about Peter. He was an international student from Taiwan. When he just arrived he worked at restaurants and went to school at the same time. After he got his degree, he bought this little shop in the international market place and became an entrepreneur. He and his wife also has an import and export company. In the few years prior to the recession their business was doing extremely well and they earned quite a good sum of money. Now business was not as profitable in Hawaii as years past, and Peter’s wife went back to Taiwan to find new opportunities. As a result Peter didn’t care about his little shop any longer, and he was glad to find me as a helper so he could go play Mahjong.

In the past I was just a professor of economics and only knew theoretic things about commerce. I didn’t know that in real life competition would be so fierce in a marketplace like this, and it really takes a good amount of work to be a good salesman.

To tell the truth, I manned the shop by myself on that first day, but after twelve hours of standing and hollering I did not even sell $100 worth of goods. After you take away my wage and rental fees from this bit of money, my boss Peter actually lost money. When he came to help me lock down the shop he checked out how much I sold. When he saw that I earned very little money he didn’t seem to disapprove. He said to me, “You just started! I really believe in you.”

That night, I felt a little depressed when I went home. If I couldn’t make a profit for Peter, how could I take his money? I had my heart set on being the best salesman in the entire marketplace.

When I set my heart on something, I always try to do my best. Thus I started studying other salespeople before and after my shifts. After a period of observations and experimentation, I discovered my own rules for being a good salesman. The following are some of my discoveries.

You must be direct and cordial, and call out to the customers first. The following is something I say often in Japanese, “Please take a look! We are having an 80 percent off sale right now!”

When two young Japanese ladies heard that there is an 80% off sale, they stopped in front of my shop. I really didn’t think that the little bit of Japanese I learned a long time ago could be so useful. However, if you want me to speak a lot of Japanese I would fail miserably. When the ladies came over I started to show them a selection of silver jewelry and other Hawaiian themed products.

“It is real silver, please try it on.” I picked out a silver dolphin ring and put it on one of the lady’s hands. Then I pointed to the dolphin and asked, “What do you call this in Japanese?”

The young lady looked at my sincere face and said, “Kore wa, nihongo de, iruka desu.” (This in Japanese is “iruka”) As she said this she lifted up her hand and admired the ring in the distance.

I stood behind her and started praising her, “Kawaii ne, anata wa hontoni kawaii.” (Very cute, you are really cute.)

Then I repeated what she taught me, “iruka, iruka”, and said “You are my Japanese teacher, and I am your student!”

The girl started to chuckle and said, “korewa, ikuradesuka?” (How much is this?)

Now I took the ring off her finger and checked the pricetag. It said $30, but I knew that the wholesale price was $2. So I plugged the price into my calculator and showed the lady that I took $24 dollars off, and sold it to her for $6. She was extremely excited that she got such a great deal, but actually the store still made a 200% profit. What is more important is that besides the small item she bought, she and her friend also bought some perfumes totaling over $150. My performance really surprised the Korean salesgirl across the way.

To be continued… More of my dad’s sales techniques in the next section! Stay tuned and subscribe to The Baglady if you don’t want to miss a thing.

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